Basketball: Archers take aim for top flight success

Feb 27 2008 by Anthony Woolford, South Wales Echo

Archers take aim for top flight success

WOMEN’S basketball in Wales has been given a boost – thanks to the business goals of a Cardiff-based company.

Uwic Archers, who are playing in their first season in Division One of the National Women’s Basketball League, have won the support of a business that provides the team with two of its players.

The club – based at the Uwic Cyncoed campus in Cardiff – has won a sponsorship deal from Bovema/UK, Britain’s fastest-growing designer, manufacturer and installer of natural ventilation products and smoke control systems.

Shooting guard Sarah Wagstaffe and 6ft 3ins Latvian international forward Ilze Zekite, both Uwic Masters students, are regulars in the Archers side currently lying fourth in Britain’s Elite Women’s Basketball League Division One.

Both girls have recently been employed within the Bovema accounts division at its UK headquarters in Cathedral Road, Cardiff.

The 12-strong Uwic Archers squad also includes Great Britain’s Basketball captain Stef Collins, together with Australian ex-professional player-coach Trudie Hopgood.

The majority of the Archers squad are students – Uwic have supported Stef and Ilze through academic-sporting scholarships – while other players juggle work, family and basketball to compete at the highest level.

The Uwic Archers train three nights a week, hold a weekly video analysis session, while often playing two games a week – and also have their own conditioning programmes to complete.

Archers home games attracts a large family following with children involved in playing on court at half-time and meeting the players after each match, providing them with a real introduction to the sport.

Bovema/UK managing director David Fitzpatrick said: “We are very proud to be involved with the Uwic Archers.

“They deserve some financial support for the fantastic season they had last year and, hopefully, this support will help them this season as it’s a big deal to be playing in the highest possible league there is.”